Another dawn breaks as shots ring out across the Mississippi countryside as the first dove hunt of the 2018-19 fall hunting season begins. The beauty of the southern woodlands is enhanced with a kaleidoscope of colors on the eastern horizon with brilliant hues of pink, blue, orange, and purple bursting forth with the day’s new dawn.

Shots continued to echo across the hills and hollows as doves rained down on us from the sky.

“Ka-boom, ka-boom!”

Two doves flew across the power line opening but they were promptly dispatched as Jerome Embry and Louisiana went to work. Louisiana is his crackerjack black lab who relished retrieving birds. Louisiana retrieved many birds from the thick jungle of vines and brush that would have otherwise been lost and wasted.

I witnessed the scene unfolding as doves flew into the field and shotguns roared with many a miss and a few kills. Some statistics show that the national average for dove hunting is one kill for 11 shots! It’s not hard to see why people miss the doves when they’re flying at the speed of sound while dipping, darting and diving through the shot zone.

If you only hunt doves once a year and don’t do any wing shooting in the meantime, you’ll end up missing a lot and most of us did.

But there’s just nothing like the camaraderie of an opening season dove hunt to get your anticipation flowing for the fall hunting season and if you’re really fortunate you’ll have an opportunity to sample some delicious doves.

There’s nothing quite like a feast prepared by a southern country cook like my bride, Kathy, prepares. Fried doves, with some simmered in brown gravy with biscuits, gravy, potatoes or rice is simply amazing. She learned well from my grandmothers, Myrtle Nolen and Ruby Giles, and for that I am truly thankful.

My daughter Mikayla took a respite from school and got in on some of the hot action as well. Though the birds were flying high and fast she was able to down a few and we brought home enough for supper. There’s nothing like the fast action dove hunting provides if you have some doves to shoot at.

Yes, there’s a lot of missing for sure and plenty of good-natured ribbing after missing a dove or two. But the best part about dove hunting is the fast action and chance to make up for a miss pretty quickly. If you get plenty of shots you can usually determine your lead and harvest a few but if the shots are few and far between, then it’s hard to get your eye on the ball- or dove as it were. Probably the best thing about it is that everybody misses a few so nobody can get too down about things.

Though doves are fast and provide sizzling action during the early part of the fall, they’re just a precursor to more exciting fun in the fall and winter. Harvest time is now upon us and you don’t want to miss out on the exciting hunting action. Choose your fun and get out doors and do it.

Call Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or email mikegiles18@comast.net.